The Adventure Kids
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: You see them: the eight children who vanished into the torn sky and brought the dawn back to earth. But what do you really know about them?
1. The World in the Sky

**A/N:** Written for the a writing muse community on livejournal, table 10-B and prompt #001. Island. This chapter functions as a prologue of sorts.

Regarding the fanfiction rules, this might be second person, but second person isn't in fact against the rules: "interactive" fics is what are (the second person is listed as an example, but not all second person fics are interactive). This is just a thought experiment, as if some omnipresent entity in the Digital World addressing the people who were staring at the sky in the real world during the final arc of Adventure. I've just taken the role of that omnipresent entity…which would make it technically first person, despite the lack of "I's". But I digress; point is, I'm fairly certain it's not against the rules, just like plays aren't against the rules even though "scripts" are.

All that aside, enjoy and let me know what you think.

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**The Adventure Kids  
1. The World in the Sky**

You can see the sky, transformed as it is. In your mind's eye, you can still find the pale blue expanse stretching over – white wisps of summer cloud brushing against a bright yellow sun. But now it is not there, and instead there are brown-crust islands drifting on an indigo dye cloth, blurred by the green lines that ran along and across like a grid.

You might have been back at school, being asked to draw something after being given a piece of graphing paper, having little squares of 5mm sides neatly lined up in the white background. Or maybe your paper wasn't quite neat, or white; you might be one of those people who throw a whole assortment of things into their backpack and have to deal with miscolours and scrunches later. Or you might be one of those who buys their supplies so early – or perhaps an older sibling's – so that the edges are yellowing by the time a pencil touches the page.

You're not at school now though, so it doesn't matter. You might not even be of school age; that doesn't matter either. What matters is that scene in the sky, that scene you've never seen before…and yet looks somehow familiar to you…

You squint at one of the islands – or you assume they are islands anyway: mountain-like peaks, some of them white with snow, others dark with the heavy canopy of trees overhead and one that looked as though a waterfall constantly washed it clean. One island appeared to be moving. Another appeared to be swallowed up by the large island in its centre. Then there was one that sprouted a mountain too straight and square. Do you think of the Egyptian Pyramids when you see that? Or are your eyes wondering elsewhere?

Maybe your eyes just aren't sharp enough to pick out those subtleties from our world. Few can; fewer still can see the underlining digital code that permeates it all. The zeroes and ones that run in an endless loop beneath the framework of all manner of things that exists in our Digital World: this strange land in the sky that you can only stare at and wonder.

Should we be grateful for that? It is the reason we have been able to live in relative peace for all these years. We have our own problems, yes, but at least they are separate from your own. But if I told you about the power-hungry Devimon, who attempted to control all manner of digimon, would you think of one of your own dictators in his place? And if I told you about Etemon, a singing sensation whose hypnotic voice slowly corrupted your brood?

Or are you one of those people who cares nothing of this world, so apparently remote from your own? Who thinks of the strange phenomena of barriers falling apart as an artefact of science, or fanatics attempting to put evidence to some myth? Who turns their face from the murmurs of panic that seeps through others around them, concentrated at the spiritual heart of your world, that Tokyo in Japan?

No, I suppose you wouldn't be, otherwise you would not look up here still – looking with that expression on your face. Curiosity I think, and wonder, and some fear is there as well. Which are you looking at? The islands? The ocean? The mountains that rise from the sky? And what are you thinking: that none of it is real? Or perhaps how to get there yourself?

You're still looking up there even as things fall. Digimon, falling through the barrier from our world to yours…but can you see them? See that Apemon climbing the straight back of a tall building. Or perhaps you're seeing a gorilla escaped from your circus instead. Or that Kuwagumon in the sky – an insect permeating the sky in a blur of red?

But you can see the sky; I see it reflecting in your eyes: that indigo dye blue ocean and that brown-crust assortment of land mass drifting afloat in it. Those mountains rising from their peaks to the roots that dug into the land; specks of green, blue or grey background noise. A world far out of your reach, and you wonder…something.

I guess it doesn't matter what. Maybe each of you are even wondering a different thing, or the same. And maybe that changes as you watch a stream of rainbow light connect the two worlds - the Rainbow Bridge Brifost you might think – or maybe not.

But you see the eight children swallowed up by it, and so do those who surround you.


	2. The Boy in Orange

**A/N:** Written for the a writing muse community on livejournal, table 10-B and prompt #005. Photo Album. See, I'm not going in order after all. :)

All that aside, enjoy and let me know what you think.

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**The Adventure Kids  
2. The Boy in Orange**

You can see a boy with a nest of brown hair, holding a little girl's hand tight. Some of you may recognise his name or the details that profiled him. Yagami Taichi: eleven years old, fifth-grader at Odaiba Elementary School, soccer star. Or maybe you've just seen his face somewhere, with other up-and-rising sport stars.

Some of you may recognise the girl whose hand he held; others amongst you may theorise. The jagged locks of brown would be a give-away, even if her hair was combed neatly and flat while his was jelled to stick up in all dimensions. But she is his little sister: Yagami Hikari, whose name was a twist of fate not even her parents are aware of. Some of you may know more of her, or you may just see her as the little girl who often tagged along with her big brother.

But then they're swallowed up by the sky, and you know nothing about him – them – at all. You can't see him now; you just know he's there. Maybe he's on the mountains? you think. Maybe in the sea? Or on one of those little islands that are nothing more than little dots in the sky? Or maybe he's been gobbled up by one of those monsters, like that one with red claws that almost killed four hundred people in a plane.

Or maybe – probably – you're not thinking of the "where" at all, but of the "what". And the "why" for some of you: why must children fight when adults are powerless against all? But you don't ask; you simply clasp your hands together and pray. Pray for their safety, their success, even if you understand nothing.

And that's okay, because hopes and dreams and prayers are the fuel, and the space that links our worlds the carrier. He walks with head held high; he knows what has been placed upon his shoulders, and he takes with him the smiles and tears of his loved ones…and others he doesn't even recognise in the horde.

But now you all wait, staring blindly into the sky and seeing it wither without knowing what has changed. You don't see him straighten, let go of his sister's hand so she stands behind him – sometimes beside. You don't see him grow larger, stronger, more determined. You don't see the moments where his heart wavers in between, up to the point where the orange spirit he bears starts turning black again.

You don't even see that orange. You wouldn't know how it had once become covered in tar, a tar so thick it took an age to scrub it off again. You don't see how it waxes and wanes still: sometimes blaring so bright it burns all who touch it, sometimes smouldering and barely visible beneath ash.

Your world is too far way, still, even if you can see the peaks of mountains and the spiralling blue sea…but I wonder, can you recognise that as a sea? They don't usually spiral up the sides of a mountain like that after all – but you can't the mountain either, just lots of larger mountains that are simply shadows of this new world.

You can't see the true sea, the true land: nothing but a spiralling mass of grey and blue reaching to veiled heavens. You see instead repeating units: the core that has remained in our memories, that will remain even if all life forms faded way because it is transcribed into code of this world. The first things that will be rebuilt: Infinity Mountain, and the land and sea that surround it. And yet that is what you focus on, thinking that will change, will return to normal.

The Digital World is still veiled, and you are looking at a layer that hides the truth. You don't think it so, and why would you? Even I don't know why the layer is there, for the illusion has no practical purpose…except it was Infinity Mountain that was recognised, Infinity Mountain that lead the children to open the gate.

But it is not on Infinity Mountain, but _Spiral_ Mountain upon which they now walk. Where _he_ walks, now leading a group of five humans instead of the eight that had begun. Where he walks with a heavy but newly-kindled hopeful heart. Where he stops, that light spluttering and darkening again as his sister falls behind him, and he curses himself for not holding her hand. The flecks of ash fly off as he rages alone, then with a friend, finally releasing the pent up explosion in a punch that brings more tears to his eyes. But it was well worth it, because his friend smiles at the return of the orange blaze – a blaze he _can_ see, because he's another one of _those_ children. The children with blazing spirits we chose.

Yagami Taichi. Eleven years old. Fifth grader…. What use do we have for information like that? I wonder how many of you see the Yagami Taichi that we do, the boy we chose. The boy who we gave our matches, so he could light his soul.

Yagami Taichi. Heartful. Resolute. _Courageous_.


End file.
